Economic concepts in irrigation

Pakistan’s endearment with the KB dam is one of those aspects whereby the developing world’s agriculture tries to defend itself without understanding the underlying reasons for the inefficiencies in the joint agriculture and irrigation sector. Water is only one of the intermediate commodity that is utilized by the agrarian population to explain their lack of productivity. This rationalisation explains away the inefficiencies of the farming community. It is always best to blame the others for one’s own shortcomings. There is more to it then simply the inefficiencies of the system.

Kalabagh dam will if constructed consume large quantities of extremely scarce resources, such as capital (any amount in billions of dollars and the planning document of Wapda is always poor in costing, so the impact will be more than the planned effect) and recurrent finance as well as skilled manpower. It is these scarce resources that made me rethink the entire project and its aftermath that will impact our economic system. What, for instance, has been the recurring cost of Tarbella and Mangla dam and has that been taken into consideration in the economic performance of the subject commodity. The rationalisation given is that this will in fact provide for cheap hydro electricity. I am afraid that costing is as perverted as their costing of dams. Let them accept the challenge that if they do not deliver on their statements and if they do not they should be charged with criminal misdemeanor. A regular audit is called for and finance is one but a management audit of their projects is called for. They have been off the hook for a long time whereby they have started accepting their own activities as cat’s whiskers.

If you consider the various dams such as the Mirani dam and other smaller dams (and also Khanpur dam) these have not led to any transformation of agriculture. The promised farmer’s banquet has gone sour and has merely been an engineer’s picnic. All water and electric projects have always been short changed to the people of Pakistan promising much and delivering even less. Farmer’s economic considerations have been relegated. The KB dam will not settle any new lands for it is a replacement of the Tarbella dam. The present culture is in terms of what is likely to be achieved and the protagonists of the dam have made wild claims. They should also give an affidavit that if this is not done they will forfeit all their properties and contribute prorate to the loss that is incurred by the country.

Pakistan has never evaluated the Tarbella dam for efficiency or for that matter Mangla dam despite the fact that there are over 28 volumes on the lower Jhelum Indus project with the irrigation agencies. Why is the important question? There are many factors but some of them are 1. No one reads these volumes. 2. Public scrutiny is reused. 3. These documents are held to be secret and therefore not to be shown. These attitudes also pervade in the operation phase. Let us know if any one is allowed inside the Tarbella and Mangla dam. Since past evaluation is not done the lessons learnt are seldom implemented.

Economic analysis for the engineers is not important and seldom accepted by the engineering profession. There are unjustified reasons provided by the people wanting these actions. We presuppose knowledge of complicated as well as simple economics and data. Is there any engineer who has done a study based on money and real costs, of the distinction between marginal costs and average costs and product, and of the applicability of opportunity costs? Even the cost-benefit analyses that have been made in the planning documents suffer from data that is incorrect and that borders on criminality. All projects have wilfully shown fewer costs and more benefits and the incorrect internal rate of return. Ghabir dam and other dams were visited and it was determined that proper study of costs and benefits was not done. Special interest groups have obscured the real issues involved government mega projects.

The reallocation of waters for irrigation have a special significance for lower riparian areas specifically Sindh. The politics of water reallocation for one [received province] over another is not acceptable to a sizeable population of Pakistan and there may be such divisions as will lead to conflicts in the political system. Sindh’s water rights are to be accepted for the recent decision on the Kishen Ganga water dispute this right of the lower riparian stands established. The establishment of this is based on the principle of balance of convenience. So if Pakistan’s environmental concerns have been accepted then the same principle with more force has to be accepted for Sindh. Sindh is suffering from weather inadequacies in as much as there is less rainfall and the land is arid for it is sandy and the land is incapable of holding water. The other important aspect is that when there is less irrigation water than Sindh will have an infusion of sea water. Subsoil water is essential to ward of salinity and sea water. Nature abhors a vacuum.

If Pakistan’s engineers do not see the social and political implications it is because engineers all over the world have never seen this as applied to conditions of social harmony. These very engineers tried with Musharraf and went so far as to cast away the others in that very institution so that Musharraf would play in their hands. He did just that and they were able to take a hefty financial support from him. In fact they had a seminar in Marriot where only KB minded policy undertakers were allowed to attend. Ever heard a seminar in secrecy well this was it. Only engineers and kinky cranks were allowed to come. What about the macro economic effects of…

So before we go in for more of the same and down the drain then we are to worry about the veracity of the statements of the engineers. Water is a commodity that is difficult to handle and that requires a different set of imagination. So the first requirement would be to improve the efficiency of water use and then to tailor the water to crop requirement. There is no way that the agriculturists would be able to work the irrigation and the agriculture agronomy in such a way that the two can work in harmony. Wapda and the irrigation engineers do not have a clue about the work of the other. In fact I was asked to reconcile the work of the irrigation engineers and the Agriculturists in the Izmir basin of Turkey. This phenomenon is prevalent every where in the world. Why there is no co-ordinated activity as the country would gain from such an action oriented program. One can only put it as idiocy of the humans involved.

The dam projects have gestation period that can run into decades. Can there be an alternative? Yes there is and there can be both in agriculture as well as in energy production. But that is another story. Let us wait for a truly-elected government. I said and I reiterate it has to be a truly-elected government. For Salmond’s jurisprudence tells me false in little things false in big things. Scale and dimensions do not matter to a liar!!!